The present disclosure relates generally to information handling systems, and more particularly to thermal dissipation in an information handling system.
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option is an information handling system. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements may vary between different applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
With the increase in information handling system performance, it has become more difficult to meet the thermal requirements of information handling system components. To solve component thermal concerns, heat sinks are often used to increase the convective heat transfer from the component to the surrounding environment. Recently, there has been an increasing trend to use heat sinks with embedded heat pipes due to their high performance and low system sound emission. With these heat pipe heat sink developments, up to 100% of the heat transfer from the heat sink to the heat sink fins is through the heat pipes.
A drawback of these heat pipe heat sink developments is that they typically have very little thermal mass, and they can be greatly affected by heat pipe quality issues. Furthermore, heat pipes are also limited by heat pipe power capacity, which can be greatly reduced due to bending or flattening operations required in the heat sink. The heat pipe heat sink efficiency can be greatly reduced by the failure of even one of the heat pipes.
Evaluating the efficiency of heat pipe heat sinks is typically done during manufacturing using an in-line test fixture that works as a gross screen for the heat sinks. However, such testing cannot catch heat pipe dry out, where the amount of fluid evaporating inside the heat pipe exceeds the capacity of the wicking to return the fluid, which can cause the heat sink to fail. Individual heat pipe samples may be tested for heat pipe dry out, but the procedure is cost-prohibitive to conduct for all the heat pipes used in large scale information handling system producing factories. Furthermore, testing will not detect outgassing, which is a function of temperature, temperature cycling, and time. Conventional in-chassis factory screens of heat pipe heat sinks are typically of low accuracy and difficult to implement.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide for thermal dissipation absent the disadvantages found in the prior methods discussed above.